The Electronic Journal of Information Systems Evaluation provides critical perspectives on topics relevant to Information Systems Evaluation, with an emphasis on the organisational and management implications

Abstract

While the productivity paradox has now been officially pronounced dead, the argument and the evidence for this assertion are both at a macroeconomic level. What has been less closely examined is the microeconomic impact of recent developments in ICT on the productivity of office and knowledge workers. There is an assumption, readily seen in many advertisements for mobile technology, that multi‑tasking, WiFi connected laptops, Blackberrys, smart phones and so on are good for business and make people more effective and productive. This may be true some of the time and there is some (albeit limited) research which supports claims that these technologies increase productivity. However there are also emerging concerns that, in certain environments, these technologies may actually reduce productivity in both the short and the long term. This paper examines this problem and research to date and proposes a framework for further investigation of this phenomenon.

Abstract

The development of Web applications is an important focus of the modern information enabled organization — whether the Web application development is in‑house, outsourced, or purchased as 'commercial‑off‑the‑shelf' (COTS) software. Traditionally Web application development has been delivered via the dominant waterfall system. The waterfall system relies upon well‑defined governance structures, linear phases, gating, and extensive reporting and sign‑off documentation. An increasing number of development stakeholders criticise the waterfall system for web application development. The criticisms include a disproportionate focus on governance and process at the direct expense of flexibility and, most importantly, reduced productivity. One consequence of these criticisms is the increasing adoption of Web application development via agile‑system methods. This agile‑system approach centres upon smaller design teams, fewer development phases, and shorter development time tables. This case study examines the implementation of the agile‑system approach as used by a Small‑to‑Medium Enterprise (SME) software developer. The case study data collection involves interviews and observations across three different SME sources: project managers, Web application programmers, and customers. The case study analysis synthesises the experiences of these managers, programmers and customers to produce an overall assessment of the usefulness of Web application delivery via agile‑system methods. The major conclusions from the case study are that a 'default' agile‑system approach may be tailored or fine‑tuned to fit an individual developer's software process. This tailoring is based upon the developer's assessment of best practice from the overall agile‑system methodology. This tailoring, however, delivers a software development process that exhibits efficiencies and risks. The efficiencies include a more fulfilling role for each development team member, greater richness and continuity in design, a simple management system that delivers key information on a timely basis to all stake‑holders, and increased business and technical quality within the delivered application, and a relatively low cost for actioning changes to user requirements. The risks pivot upon experience levels, skills levels, and the quality of interaction within — and between ‑ both the development team and customer organization.

Abstract

During the latest years, IT governance has become more and more important. More of the attention on IT Governance is captured by compliance, owing to the recent financial scandals and the severe rules regarding information systems audit and control. Companies need to comply with these rules, but it requires important investments, considered not only strategic but necessary (Remenyi et. al. 2000). However, companies should analyse the compliance requirements to implement an IT governance system, not only to comply with legal rules, but also to improve the strategic alignment between IT and business and to optimise value creation by IT compliance investments (Ventrakaman and Henderson 1996, Van Grembergen 2003). However, companies have difficulties in implementing IT compliance initiatives, because they are complex and require an integrated approach all over the organization. But IT compliance initiatives often lack an integrated, strategic approach: they only try to comply with the increasing rules affecting IT operations, thereby limiting the value of compliance investments. To optimise IT compliance, companies should develop an IT compliance strategy, aiming not only to accomplish with regulations, but also to bring processes into compliance. That is, to realise a full integration between operations, risk control, data reliability. To reach this result, compliance automated solutions are indicated, like GCR (Governance, Risk and Compliance) applications. However, standard solutions fail to support specific problems and the individual value proposition of each company: an EIMS (Enterprise Information Management Systems), developed in house, allows automatically managed processes, data and information security, to access control and system performance and to improve data usability, in accordance with company specific organisation and needs. In this paper, IT compliance is introduced, to define how to orient it to value creation; GRC systems. EIM systems are described, with their different cost and benefits for companies. The aim of the paper is to define how to develop compliance automated systems, to save money and enhance information integration and value. Observations and conclusions derive from practical experience of the author, participating to a project of EIM implementation in a major Italian company.

Abstract

This paper examines the adoption and use of information and communication technology (ICT) in small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) across four sectors in the UK. In the paper we report on a survey that explores the factors facilitating or hampering the successful adoption and use of ICT by SMEs. We find that SMEs are generally satisfied with their investments in ICT but that they are concerned about the cost of such investments and are uncertain about the business benefits. Much of the investment in ICT is directed at meeting bottom line issues of cost and productivity but little use is made of potential strategic applications. A particular case in point is the diffusion of ecommerce in which firms report increased consumer interest but there is little evidence in the survey to suggest that interest is being actively managed by SMEs. One concern that emerges from the survey is the SMEs' perceived dependency upon consultants. SMEs appear to be encountering knowledgecompetency gaps related to ICT. They may be too small to be able to employ a dedicated ICT expert and lack the experience to have confidence in its reliability of consultancy advice. They often have limited experience in selecting, implementing and evaluating suggested ICT solutions. To help correct this gap in the provision of services, the government has tried to provide support with mixed success. Certainly, the UK government has had a strong interest in helping and supporting the SME sector. However, State sponsored solutions to meet this competency gap appear to be failing with little awareness or take up of such solutions by the SMEs that we surveyed. Something that remains unclear is whether this failure by SMEs to avail themselves of advice and guidance made available by the State reflects the quality of solutions offered or a more basic lack of awareness by SMEs.

Abstract

The last decades have been characterized by extremely intense digitization — in the shape of investments in administrative and embedded IT together with advanced Internet solutions — as regards companies and organizations worldwide. Today, however, most establishments are already highly digitized, which affects the conditions for work and organizations' forms and functions. Thus, based on an empirical investigation of the health care sector, this paper addresses the notion of the post digitization era through specifically examining IT‑based reward systems. This, of course, is not a novel phenomenon, but new ways of using the reward system concept — together with IT and original ideas — in order to increase efficiency, effectiveness, and productivity are considered. This, in turn, might have great implications concerning core strategies and the organization of work. In order to fulfill the paper's purpose of identifying possible benefits and risks associated with digital reward systems, especially in health care, a case study built on semi‑structured interviews was performed. The findings of this study indicate that there are several possible fields of innovative application — including both developments of existing solutions and potential future utilizations — concerning digital reward systems in health care. Moreover, in order for reward system implementations to be successful, organizations have to define, measure, valuate and evaluate input, output and performance appropriately, and the process of doing so is also affected by the present stage of digitization. This too is contemplated throughout the paper. Finally, important associated matters such as risk‑ reward trade‑offs and quantity versus quality are discussed. The results presented in this paper are based on a limited material. Still, they are valuable and original because of the empirical foundation derived from an important industrysector. Furthermore, they illustrate modern implications of reward systems in highly digitized contexts, and put forth novel views on possible fields of application of IT‑based reward systems, and associated potential benefits and risks.

Abstract

Many companies use rewards programs to create so called "loyal" customers. Information Technology (IT) has made it possible to design such incentive programs in principle with endless variations at a low cost. It means that the company can, with the use of IT, offer non‑linear incentives that create "loyal" customers more effectively than linear ones. Internet has also reduced the cost for the customer to search and compare products and services like air flights, hotels etc. In such a competitive context, the company can use the programs to gain an advantage with a differentiated offer to the customer and to create lock‑in effects still at a low IT cost. Field observations show surprisingly that programs look very much alike and do not present as much variation as could be expected. Of special interest in this paper is the fact that companies typically offer three, or less, membership levels to increase the incentive for the customer to spend money at the company. These three levels come in different versions like, for example, "Bronze", "Silver" and "Gold" or with similar labels. The reward to the customer is generally associated and accelerated with membership level. In this paper, we analyze the consequences of using membership levels as a way to create both competitive differentiation and effective customer incentives. We suggest a model for understanding how the consumer decides on spending at a company that offers a reward program with different membership levels. The decision setting for the customer is described as a risky contract with a risky time‑state‑contingent claim. The contract is risky since the terms and conditions for membership can be altered by the company, without any legal penalties. The claim is risky since it is uncertain to the customer whether the state required for the membership will be achieved. We show with the help of this model that the present use of a small number of membership levels could be questioned as the most effective incentive mechanism.

Abstract

This paper outlines the application of a model of business that has been developed from an amalgam of sources covering a wide range of research literature concerned with the relationship between electronic communication and the business. This model outlines what is termed an "organisational profile" profile and allows the analysis of the business with respect to its ability to perform in four distinct quadrants: management, processes, organisational culture and human resources. It is then applied to the adoption of ICT in the business and the supply chain using a case study of the UK construction industry. The results are analysed to show which elements of the model are important for success. The model shows that to be successful in the adoption of ICT a business must have threshold scores in each of these quadrants that show its make‑up or "organisational profile" (OP). It is this OP that is the most interesting point of the research. It has been found that certain OPs are more likely to succeed in this adoption than others and that the likelihood of success can be shown by the movement of the business in the four quadrants: thus the model can provide a rough prediction of the future success in various activities — such as adoption of ICT but can also be extended to other activities because of the widespread nature of the model developed. It is also planned to apply the model to different problems in the same domain in the near future so that further insights can be gained from the model and its application.

Abstract

Chile is recognized as the most wired or the most e‑Ready country in South America and in the top quartile globally. Chile has the highest penetration of cell phones in South America, yet it has been slow in adopting mobile commerce. In this exploratory research, both electronic and mobile commerce adoption in Chile are studied. The survey questions are developed based on the previous studies on mobile commerce adoption. The results show that the group studied uses electronic commerce extensively but is not comfortable using mobile commerce, and complain than mobile access speed, service quality and price needs improvement.

Abstract

There seems to be very few signs of the politeness peculiar to Iranians, when considering information ethics in Iranian library and information science scene. An expressed dissatisfaction appears to exist with library services among users studied in some dissertations on user satisfaction in library and information science in Iran. In spite of this fact that might be at least partly related to misbehavior of librarians, the words "ethics", "moral issues", and "morality" are not found in almost all of the publications related to library and information science in Iran, even in the most formal ones. These publications and documents as well as the current attempts to develop the topic in Iran, including both publications and activities, will be studied in this paper. The social, economic, and ethical aspects of the issue including the misunderstanding of the concepts of who serves and who must be served, who pays the tax and who must obtain service due to tax paying, the overall dissatisfaction of librarians concerning their social status as well as salaries and wages, the low costs, if any, of library and information services in Iran, will also be considered to show why this negligence has occurred in the profession. There are some efforts to be made however, to improve the situation. Library and information science educators firstly must do their best to show the significance of ethics in the profession. Their efforts must comprise the formal and informal teaching of information ethics to their students. Inclusion of courses of ethics in formal syllabi is among formal attempts. The demonstration of this ethics in LIS educator's behavior is an informal one. Publication of papers on information ethics is another duty of LIS educators. Setting up workshops on information ethics is a necessary step to be taken. Professional associations such as Iranian Library and Information Science Association (ILISA) can play an important role on the scene. The provision of an information code of ethics is a major responsibility of this association and is highly recommended.

Abstract

This paper reports on the development and initial end‑user evaluation (after ten months in‑use) of a Patient Data Analysis Information System (PDA‑IS) for Geriatric Medicine. The development and evaluation is the first phase of a larger ongoing research project. The PDA‑IS contains a set of high integrity patient data records (a local practice‑based repository of clinical patient data) available for the Consultant Physician in Geriatric Medicine. The evaluation of the system identifies the wide range of benefits that were realised by the Consultant Physician and indeed could be expected in the future from the deployment and extension of such a flexible solution for all Consultant Physicians in hospital practice that need to collect patient data.

Abstract

Globalisation has had an enormous impact on the manner in which teams operate. Traditional teams have been forced to adapt to their constantly changing environment in order to compete effectively with other business. A vast number of IT professionals work in teams, which are characterised by distribution and diversity. It is the presence of virtual characteristics that may result in numerous social problems which can negatively impact team communication and productivity, demanding more effective team management. There is much potential for conflict in virtual teams as members work across cultural, geographical and time‑bound environments. This conflict leads to ineffective communication and as soon as team members stop communicating effectively, barriers begin to form between them, which, leads to a decrease in productivity and interaction. Conflict resolution, and the extent to which it undermines performance, depends heavily on the conflict resolution approach. This qualitative research is conducted by means of a literature review only, in which several managerial models available to virtual team managers are critically analysed and combined into a proposed theoretical model of general managerial guidelines for virtual team managers. Both current and proposed models discussed within this paper should be viewed within the limitations of this research i.e., the proposed model remains untested and should be viewed as a hypothesis for future research. This research distinguishes virtual teams from traditional teams by defining characteristics that are common to virtual teams. These characteristics are: physical dispersion, crossing time boundaries, dependence on communication technologies, crossing functional boundaries, diversity, unstable team structure, non‑routine as well as interrelated tasks. The research argues that teams are neither entirely traditional (local) nor entirely Global but may be placed on a continuum of virtuality according to the virtual characteristics the team possesses. The theoretical model proposed by this research: Proposed Managerial Strategies, is intended to help IT managers overcome conflict and consequent social problems within virtual teams, which may otherwise lead to ineffective communication. The model provides managers with guidelines and strategies which may be implemented to enable effective social interaction and prevent future problems.